


Cafe du Monde Reprise

by blacklaces



Series: Café Alrededor del Mundo [4]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Multi, New Orleans, Nile coda, Nile didn't sign up for this, Nile was a Marine and picked up a thing or two, One case of Cafe du Monde is $277, POV Nile Freeman, Quynh & Booker's Excellent Adventure, Quynh & Booker's heavily implied shopping spree, Rated M for Mature Language, They bought 20, author's attempt at humor, series interlude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacklaces/pseuds/blacklaces
Summary: The dreams continue. Booker on a boat with a woman, Booker in a cab resting his head against the same woman’s red-clad shoulder, always her face slightly obscured. Booker talking to a different woman, Booker holding heaping plates of beignets, Booker in- wait, is that New Orleans?(WTF, Nile thinks when she wakes up. Andy won’t let her anywhere near North America, but Booker gets to eat doughnuts in a New Orleans riverfront cafe seemingly without a care in the world? Not cool bro.)
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Quynh | Noriko, Quynh | Noriko/Andy | Andromache of Scythia
Series: Café Alrededor del Mundo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1846708
Comments: 43
Kudos: 375





	Cafe du Monde Reprise

**Author's Note:**

> This work take places concurrently with the previous ones in the series, with the biggest overlap occurring when Quynh and Booker are in New Orleans. The three preceding works in the series are a necessary read for timeline and action clarity.

The dreams come back, or the dreams keep happening, or Nile’s gained a very active imagination along with immortality. It’s confusing. It feels like those few brief dreams she had before meeting the others- those flashes of people on a train that she later realized was Andy, Booker, Joe, and Nicky. These dreams feel like those- running deep with emotion and _something_. 

It doesn’t make sense. 

Her dreams are chaotic, non-linear, and muddied at best. Booker smiling, Booker drinking coffee in a cafe, Booker handing a box to someone whose sleeve has blood on it, Booker in a crowded city street eating dumplings with a woman who feels so _familiar_ to Nile. 

Always, flashes of the woman’s long hair frame her dreams, like a black border around out of focus paragraphs. The turmoil she feels are at odds with the snapshots of her dreams. It’s the rage and insanity that she felt from Quynh, but gentled over time. Every dream feels more content, more settled. 

She hasn’t dreamed of Quynh in her box since that night at the church when everything went to shit. Nile doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse. 

But it still raises a point. Why is she dreaming of Booker? She doesn’t want to ask the others; immortal family or not. Joe still keeps Nicky within arms reach, Andy hides her winces from every tug at her injuries, and Nicky vetoes every mission from Copley that takes place within the boundaries of the former French Empire. Nile doesn’t even know how to bring this up. 

She tries to imagine the scenario in her head. 

_Hey guys! You know Booker, the guy that betrayed you all and at least one of you wants to kill him but you all still love and care for him? Yeah, that Booker. Anyway, he keeps appearing in my dreams almost every night, but I thought that was supposed to stop after we met, what gives?_

Yeah, not a chance in hell she’s dropping that bombshell over breakfast. 

But the dreams continue. Booker on a boat with a woman, Booker in a cab resting his head against the same woman’s red-clad shoulder, always her face slightly obscured. Booker talking to a different woman, Booker holding heaping plates of beignets, Booker in- wait, is that _New Orleans_? 

(WTF, Nile thinks when she wakes up. Andy won’t let her anywhere near North America, but Booker gets to eat doughnuts in a New Orleans riverfront cafe seemingly without a care in the world? Not cool bro.) 

Nile kind of wants to know who this mysterious woman is, but she’s not just gonna show up to wherever Booker is without any intel. She may not have been a recon marine, but Nile’s still capable of doing some motherfucking reconnaissance. Ooh Rah bitch.

It all comes to a head one night. Her dreams aren’t gentle, they’re _fierce_ . Booker being strangled, Booker tied to a chair, Booker being yelled at by a woman with long black hair who looks like an avenging goddess out of Andy’s stories- oh shit, _Quynh_. Quynh’s the woman in the dreams. Quynh’s fury is palpable in that moment, the same ferocity that Nile felt the first time she ever dreamed of her back in full force, so strong that Nile almost can’t breathe. 

Nile jolts up, almost falling out of her bed. She doesn’t understand. Quynh’s supposed to be at the bottom of the ocean, so lost she can’t be found. 

Think Nile, _think_.

Okay, so Nile hasn’t been dreaming about Booker. Nile’s been dreaming about Quynh, who’s with Booker. Nile’s been dreaming about Booker for almost six months, so they must have been together almost the whole time. Something happened, and now this insane, rage-filled ( _content, settled_ ) woman currently has Booker tied up in a hotel room after, presumably, killing him. Falling out with a woman as dangerous as Nile thinks Quynh is will probably not be good for Booker in the long run, even if they can’t permanently die. She needs to tell the team, she needs to tell _Andy_. But Nile knows how this team, this family works. 

Con: If she tells them now, they’ll get on the next available transport to New Orleans and make a plan on the way. 

Con: If she’s been dreaming of Quynh, Quynh’s been dreaming about her- and who knows what she’s gleaned from Nile’s mind.

Con: This could be a trap. 

Pro: If she tells them now, they have enough collective experience that anything they come up with in eight hours will likely be better planned than anything the Marines could come up with in six months, so. 

Telling them it is. 

She gets up off the floor and runs out the door of her room and down the stairs to the living room of her and Andy’s safe house in Serbia. In the best feat of coincidence in the world, Andy’s on the phone with Joe and Nicky when she enters. Andy looks up when Nile stops at the bottom of the stairs, immediately on high alert when she sees the look on Nile’s face. 

“Quynh’s alive.” Nile blurts out, mouth working faster than her brain. “I mean, she’s out of the box. She just killed Booker.”

Andy, _Andy_ (who’s _seven thousand_ years old and thought there was nothing left in the world to shock her) drops the phone onto the floor. Distantly, the tinny voice of Joe coming from the phone is asking a million questions in a million different languages. 

“Where?” Andy asks, voice fragile. 

“New Orleans, I think.” Nile replies. 

Andy picks the phone up from the floor. “Joe, Nicky. Pack your bags. We’re picking you up in Tunis. Contact Copley while we’re on the way- see if he can narrow down their location.”

Nile can hear Joe and Nicky protesting over the phone.

“Boss.” Nicky says, voice thick with emotion. “Let,- let us do this.”

“No.” Andy says, voice hard this time. 

“Andy,” Joe says, apparently having taken the phone from Nicky. “Andy, this could go bad real fast and-”

Andy hangs up. She looks back at Nile. “Get ready, kid. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

Nile wants to protest. Wants to yell at Andy that she could die if this goes south. But, she thinks she understands. For the longest time it was just Andy and Quynh, and then it was Andy and Booker. Andy’s going, but Nile will have her six at every step. 

-

The plane to New Orleans is one of the tensest, most awkward flights Nile has ever been on, second only to the time Andy _kidnapped_ her. Joe and Nicky keep looking at Andy, then quickly looking away every time her head shoots up to glare at them. Nile almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. A group of three immortals and one not-immortal who still acts like she can’t die on their way to what, a meetup (ambush?) two other immortals, one of whom might quite literally be out of her mind and holding the other immortal hostage as a way to draw them out so she can possibly get revenge on the girlfriend she believes abandoned her to continually drown at the bottom of the ocean.

_Good times._ Nile thinks.

Does Quynh know Andy can die now? Is it better or worse if she does? 

Nile thinks, as the only objective voice in the whole ordeal, thinks she should be allowed to point out the ludicrousness of it all. 

-

Copley gives them the green light to go ahead, giving them the room number of the penthouse suite that Booker and Quynh are in. The team goes in through the roof down to the hallway. Joe was all for going through the windows ( _again_. What is with this man and windows?) but Andy vetoes it in favor of stealth. Nile is still unclear on what the expected end result of this mission is supposed to be. Capturing Quynh? Reconciling with Quynh?

They slowly move down the hallway until they reach the last door on the left.. Nicky moves to the front while the rest of them get into position behind him. Nicky raises his hand to give the signal, and looks back at Andy for confirmation. She nods; Nile grips her rifle tighter. Nicky kicks the door open, splintering the frame, and they quickly move in through the living area towards the bedroom. The sight that greets them is- _well_ , Nile thinks, _that’s, that’s_ _interesting_.

The sight that greets them is not Booker being held hostage, or Quynh maniacally holding a gun. She’s still holding a gun, but so is Booker, and they’re pointed at them. It takes a couple seconds for both sides to register what is happening and lower their guns.

The bed Booker and Quynh are sitting on is dominated by takeout boxes from what looks like five different restaurants. The nightstands on both sides of the bed are crowded with plastic bottles and Styrofoam cups. The television is playing the food network channel. Nile can’t believe this is her life. Lined up against the wall is a deep fryer still in its box, a case of coffee with at least 20 cans that Nile can see. Literally, what is going on? 

Booker is quickly turning an interesting shade of puce that Nile’s never seen anyone turn before, and Quynh’s zeroed in on Andy who’s moved to be level with Nile and Nicky (which wasn’t the plan Andy! You bleed now! Please stand behind the people who can take a bullet for you and you know, not die!). The two of them are communicating through a very interesting combination of eye-fucking and eye-murdering that Nile really doesn’t want to be present for. 

To Nile’s right, Joe lowers his rifle. 

“What the fuck? He says.

What the fuck indeed. 

**Author's Note:**

> So first time that I've written something not place/history based for this series, but this was the only way to move the narrative forward. This isn't so much as main fic, but more of an interlude. 
> 
> Nile didn't sign up for immortality, and she definitely didn't sign up for the immortality soap opera. 
> 
> As always, find me on tumblr at [Blacklaces](https://blacklaces.tumblr.com/)


End file.
